Generally speaking, the petroleum industry involves three major players—(1) oil refineries, (2) crude oil and refined products traders/brokers and (3) service providers such as vessel owners/brokers, inspectors, terminal operators and pipeline companies. Each party typically uses internal procedures and proprietary means to conduct business/trading. Crude oil and petroleum product trading is not standardized, there are over 600 types of crude oil around the world.
Briefly, the oil refineries receive crude oil and process the oil into usable products and/or blendable components such as fuel oil, intermediate feedstocks and high grade gasoline. The refinery receives orders for various quantities of products specified by respective grade and quality. Also, the refinery schedules specific dates by which to fulfill the orders.
An analyst of the refinery uses internal and/or published standards to determine the necessary ingredients and quantities thereof to blend together to form an ordered product to specification. Next, he checks the refinery's inventory for availability of these ingredients in the desired quantities. He may find some ingredients, at the desired quantities, to be in inventory while other ingredients need to be obtained. The analyst cross references the ingredients of his order with that of other orders to account for any inventory which may be in common with the order he is processing. Thus it is a complex exercise to determine which ingredients and at what quantities are needed to be added to the inventory in order to fulfill each product order.
Further, a product marketer forecasts demand of products. A refinery planner evaluates refinery operation, output and available resources, and monitors/maintains appropriate inventory. Inventory may include (i) various crude oils, (ii) intermediate feedstocks usable for component blending and (iii) end products. The refinery planner wants to optimize the plant (refinery) and thus needs to determine what crude oils are going to give the best yield given the current plant configuration (distillation columns, catalyst crackers, etc.).
The supply trader or an outside broker has the task of obtaining the needed feedstock at the necessary quantities for inventory. For each needed feedstock, the supply trader has a target receipt date and a total dollar budget which is acceptable to the refinery (in order to economically and timely fill product orders). The supply trader contacts his network of suppliers for respective quotes (going rates) on available quantities of the needed feedstock. Typically, rates change daily or within a day. Sometimes the supply trader will look to purchasing piecewise quantities from plural suppliers which in the aggregate meets the total needed amount of a feedstock within the acceptable budget. Variation in quality, and the like, affect the quantities and the price that the trader will pay for a given feedstock. Also the trader needs to work with scheduling personnel to arrange for shipping of the quantities of the feedstock, from the various sources, so that the total needed amount arrives at the refinery by an acceptable date (the target receipt date).
As can be seen given the foregoing, the trader must make multiple phone calls to his suppliers and shippers and maintain a complex tally of costs, quantities and time schedules in order to accomplish his task. That is, by the time the trader makes a series of phone calls, e.g. to a first supplier, a second supplier, a shipper and then re-calls the first supplier, the unit price may have changed or the shipping vessel is no longer available. Consequently the trader must make adjustments, more phone calls and recalculate totals to ensure he is within budget/target (dollar and timewise).
Further there is a dynamic aspect of crude oil and petroleum product trading. In transit amounts of crude oil (or intermediate feedstock/components) may become available to the market where that amount is arriving too late to fulfill an original order. Various amounts of crude oil, intermediate feedstocks (components) or end products may become available in a disaster recovery situation. Traders/brokers use these offers and the results thereof in fulfilling (in full or part) original orders.
Further, there are various distribution points for petroleum products (e.g., gasoline) throughout the United States. Different distribution points carry different grades of products as a function of local and state regulations. The U.S. Department of Energy controls amounts in inventory at each of the distribution points. The federal agency determines what amounts of which products need to be shifted among the distribution points based on monthly to quarterly reports by the distribution points. Accordingly, the petroleum industry supply chain is illustrated in FIG. 5 and discussed later.